Garcetti Denies Misuse of Wiretaps

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti denied Friday that prosecutors misuse wiretap evidence, calling the electronic eavesdropping by police an “important and effective tool” against illegal drug dealers.

“Every court has said you are doing that the right way,” he said at a news conference called to refute allegations by the county public defender that Garcetti’s office covered up hundreds of questionable wiretaps.

“Let’s make it clear that they’ve already challenged this in Superior Court once and they’ve lost,” Garcetti said.

Assistant Public Defender Bob Kalunian said Friday that the district attorney has not complied with a November court order to release the names of people who in the past decade were the subject of wiretaps or whose telephone conversations were intercepted by chance.

More than 400 criminal convictions should be reviewed, if not thrown out, because defendants were never told wiretap information was used as evidence against them, Kalunian and other lawyers said in a court affidavit filed this week.

“We have researched voluminous materials and have discovered evidence that there were wiretaps without judicial authorization,” Kalunian added, declining to elaborate.

The court papers charge that by tapping cellular phones and public pay phones, police and prosecutors listened in on private conversations of thousands of people who were not the targets of criminal investigations. That information was used against people implicated in unrelated crimes, the court papers charged.

Garcetti defended the use of the so-called handoff practice, saying that the technique is used around the country. Kalunian disputes the assertion.

“To my knowledge, no court has said you can’t do that,” Garcetti said.

Although Garcetti declined to discuss specifics of the latest legal challenge, he said he was confident that defendants imprisoned with the help of wiretaps under his jurisdiction belonged there. “No court has concluded otherwise,” he said.

“It is very difficult to challenge a wiretap in court when you are not aware of it,” Kalunian responded. The defense attorneys’ affidavit is scheduled to be reviewed by supervising criminal courts Judge Larry Fidler on Oct. 20.